Since its adoption in December 2015 by the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21), within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 175 countries to date have ratified the Paris Agreement.
... See More + These countries have made commitments Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), in some cases contingent on financing by developed countries, to limit or reduce their Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through a variety of measures including more significant deployment of renewable power, energy efficiency, land-use controls such as conservation of forests and grasslands, carbon pricing, and other measures compatible with each country’s national circumstances and capabilities. Even with full ratification of the Agreement by all 197 signatories, the aggregate effect is projected only to slow the rate of GHG emissions growth from the 24 percent increase, between 1990 and 2010, to an anticipated increase between 2010 and 2030 of between 11 and 23 percent. To foster higher ambition and sustainable development, and also encourage large-scale financing towards the most effective mitigation measures, Article 6 of the Agreement recognizes that countries may engage in cooperative approaches, including the use of internationally transferred mitigation outcomes (ITMOs) towards their individual NDC. In this new, complex and diverse environment, this paper aims to examine emerging digital technologies and architectures that could be used to enhance and connect the heterogeneous climate actions across countries, thereby supporting post-2020 climate markets that facilitate the most cost-effective achievement of the highest possible ambition. Given the speed with which information technology, system architectures, domestic policy, and other relevant elements are developing, the roadmap laid out in this paper will likely continue to evolve significantly over the next few years.
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As the world moves on from the climate agreement negotiated in Paris, attention is turning from the identification of emissions reduction trajectories—in the form of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)—to crucial questions about how these emissions reductions are to be delivered and reported within the future international accounting framework.
... See More + The experience to date shows that, if well designed, emissions trading systems (ETS) can be an effective, credible, and transparent tool for helping to achieve low-cost emissions reductions in ways that mobilize private sector actors, attract investment, and encourage international cooperation. However, to maximize effectiveness, any ETS needs to be designed in a way that is appropriate to its context. This Handbook is intended to help decision makers, policy practitioners, and stakeholders achieve this goal. It explains the rationale for an ETS, and sets out a 10-step process for designing an ETS – each step involves a series of decisions or actions that will shape major features of the policy. In doing so, it draws both on conceptual analysis and on some of the most important practical lessons learned to date from implementing ETSs around the world, including from the European Union, several provinces and cities in China, California and Québec, the Northeastern United States, Alberta, New Zealand, Kazakhstan, the Republic of Korea, Tokyo, and Saitama.
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The issues around the environmental integrity of international market mechanisms have gained a great deal of attention in the wake of the Paris Agreement.
... See More + In addition, with the agreement on market-based measures for international aviation being reached, these issues are likely to gain even more prominence in countries’ efforts to prepare for the implementation of international market mechanisms. In a context where inaccurate accounting is one of the environmental integrity risks associated with market mechanisms, an emissions trading registry is critical for avoiding “double counting”—the situation where a single GHG emission reduction or removal is used more than once to demonstrate compliance with mitigation targets. An emissions trading registry is an online database that issues, records, and tracks the carbon units that are exchanged within market mechanisms or financed through Results-Based Climate Finance programs. Given the length of time and capacity needed for the development of a registry, it is essential for countries that are in the process of designing market mechanisms to factor in specific regulatory, administrative, functional, and technical aspects of registry development. Against this backdrop, and to further facilitate future registry design and implementation, this report provides policy makers and other stakeholders with technical insights and guidance on how to support country-specific decision making and activities related to registry development.
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Greenhouse Gas Data Management: Building Systems for Corporate/Facility-Level Reporting is intended to serve as a reference document for regulators, GHG reporting program and system administrators, and IT/development teams on all aspects of designing and developing GHG data management systems.
... See More + The guidance report: Highlights the legal, regulatory, policy, institutional, and technical considerations associated with designing and developing a system. Describes a step-by-step process for determining the functional and technical requirements of a system. Provides guidance on whether to design and develop a system using internal or external resources (or a combination of both) and on implementing the system.
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As the world moves on from the climate agreement negotiated in Paris, attention is turning from the identification of emissions reduction trajectories—in the form of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)—to crucial questions about how these emissions reductions are to be delivered and reported within the future international accounting framework.
... See More + The experience to date shows that, if well designed, emissions trading systems (ETS) can be an effective, credible, and transparent tool for helping to achieve low-cost emissions reductions in ways that mobilize private sector actors, attract investment, and encourage international cooperation. However, to maximize effectiveness, any ETS needs to be designed in a way that is appropriate to its context. This Handbook is intended to help decision makers, policy practitioners, and stakeholders achieve this goal. It explains the rationale for an ETS, and sets out a 10-step process for designing an ETS – each step involves a series of decisions or actions that will shape major features of the policy. In doing so, it draws both on conceptual analysis and on some of the most important practical lessons learned to date from implementing ETSs around the world, including from the European Union, several provinces and cities in China, California and Québec, the Northeastern United States, Alberta, New Zealand, Kazakhstan, the Republic of Korea, Tokyo, and Saitama.
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As the world moves on from the climate agreement negotiated in Paris, attention is turning from the identification of emissions reduction trajectories—in the form of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)—to crucial questions about how these emissions reductions are to be delivered and reported within the future international accounting framework.
... See More + The experience to date shows that, if well designed, emissions trading systems (ETS) can be an effective, credible, and transparent tool for helping to achieve low-cost emissions reductions in ways that mobilize private sector actors, attract investment, and encourage international cooperation. However, to maximize effectiveness, any ETS needs to be designed in a way that is appropriate to its context. This Handbook is intended to help decision makers, policy practitioners, and stakeholders achieve this goal. It explains the rationale for an ETS, and sets out a 10-step process for designing an ETS – each step involves a series of decisions or actions that will shape major features of the policy. In doing so, it draws both on conceptual analysis and on some of the most important practical lessons learned to date from implementing ETSs around the world, including from the European Union, several provinces and cities in China, California and Québec, the Northeastern United States, Alberta, New Zealand, Kazakhstan, the Republic of Korea, Tokyo, and Saitama.
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As the world moves on from the climate agreement negotiated in Paris, attention is turning from the identification of emissions reduction trajectories—in the form of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)—to crucial questions about how these emissions reductions are to be delivered and reported within the future international accounting framework.
... See More + The experience to date shows that, if well designed, emissions trading systems (ETS) can be an effective, credible, and transparent tool for helping to achieve low-cost emissions reductions in ways that mobilize private sector actors, attract investment, and encourage international cooperation. However, to maximize effectiveness, any ETS needs to be designed in a way that is appropriate to its context. This Handbook is intended to help decision makers, policy practitioners, and stakeholders achieve this goal. It explains the rationale for an ETS, and sets out a 10-step process for designing an ETS – each step involves a series of decisions or actions that will shape major features of the policy. In doing so, it draws both on conceptual analysis and on some of the most important practical lessons learned to date from implementing ETSs around the world, including from the European Union, several provinces and cities in China, California and Québec, the Northeastern United States, Alberta, New Zealand, Kazakhstan, the Republic of Korea, Tokyo, and Saitama.
See Less -

As the world moves on from the climate agreement negotiated in Paris, attention is turning from the identification of emissions reduction trajectories—in the form of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)—to crucial questions about how these emissions reductions are to be delivered and reported within the future international accounting framework.
... See More + The experience to date shows that, if well designed, emissions trading systems (ETS) can be an effective, credible, and transparent tool for helping to achieve low-cost emissions reductions in ways that mobilize private sector actors, attract investment, and encourage international cooperation. However, to maximize effectiveness, any ETS needs to be designed in a way that is appropriate to its context. This Handbook is intended to help decision makers, policy practitioners, and stakeholders achieve this goal. It explains the rationale for an ETS, and sets out a 10-step process for designing an ETS – each step involves a series of decisions or actions that will shape major features of the policy. In doing so, it draws both on conceptual analysis and on some of the most important practical lessons learned to date from implementing ETSs around the world, including from the European Union, several provinces and cities in China, California and Québec, the Northeastern United States, Alberta, New Zealand, Kazakhstan, the Republic of Korea, Tokyo, and Saitama.
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Over the past 25 years, significant experience on offsetting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has been built up through the development, implementation, and improvement of various international and domestic offset programs.
... See More + Currently a number of countries, regions, and sectors are contemplating designing their own domestic offset programs. Considering if and how existing international offset programs can be used is important in this exercise. This technical note is part of the partnership for market readiness (PMR) technical work program. Its objective is to support PMR country participants currently planning and or designing domestic offset programs to identify how existing international offset programs can be best leveraged to develop domestic offset arrangements that suit their national circumstance. This can be at different levels of dependency, ranging from full reliance on international programs to fully independent domestic programs, and everything in between. Chapter one gives introduction. Chapter two first presents the scope of the note and introduces definitions of key words. It then reviews existing international offset programs and add-on labels to identify the common elements across the programs and highlight the different approaches followed. Chapter three discusses how the approaches used in international offset programs and presented in chapter two can be combined in practice when designing a domestic offset program. Chapter four assesses the institutional, regulatory, technical, and economic implications of implementing these scenarios. Chapter five brings the previous chapters together, summarizing the key questions that will help policy maker’s best leverage the existing international experience when planning and or designing a domestic offset program.
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This report comprises case studies with three companies: Royal Dutch Shell, Rio Tinto, and Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), capturing their experiences and lessons learned preparing for and operating under policies that price carbon emissions.
... See More + These companies operate in one or several jurisdictions where emissions trading has been implemented and therefore provide useful insights for other companies facing similar circumstances. The lessons learned can also serve as a valuable resource for policy makers designing new systems to reduce emissions. These case studies illustrate the benefits of incorporating climate change policies into corporate strategies; analyzing risks and opportunities in an environment of new public policies; and engaging effectively with relevant stakeholders, including governments. These case studies also show how carbon assets are traded and what systems are being constructed to monitor, report, and verify company level GHG emissions. While these case studies are primarily meant to guide private companies facing carbon pricing regulation, they also provide lessons for policy makers.
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This report comprises case studies with three companies: Royal Dutch Shell, Rio Tinto, and Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), capturing their experiences and lessons learned preparing for and operating under policies that price carbon emissions.
... See More + These companies operate in one or several jurisdictions where emissions trading has been implemented and therefore provide useful insights for other companies facing similar circumstances. The lessons learned can also serve as a valuable resource for policy makers designing new systems to reduce emissions. These case studies illustrate the benefits of incorporating climate change policies into corporate strategies; analyzing risks and opportunities in an environment of new public policies; and engaging effectively with relevant stakeholders, including governments. These case studies also show how carbon assets are traded and what systems are being constructed to monitor, report, and verify company level GHG emissions. While these case studies are primarily meant to guide private companies facing carbon pricing regulation, they also provide lessons for policy makers.
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The total value of the carbon market grew by 11 percent in 2011, to $176 billion, and transaction volumes reached a new high of 10.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).
... See More + This growth took place in the face of economic turbulence, growing long-term oversupply in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) and plummeting carbon prices. By far, the largest segment of the carbon market was that of EU Allowances (EUAs), valued at $148 billion. With the end of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012, the value of the pre-2013 primary certified emission reduction (CER), emission reduction unit (ERU) and assigned amount unit (AAU) markets declined in 2011. At the same time, the post-2012 primary Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) market increased by a robust 63 percent, to US$2 billion, despite depressed prices and limited long-term-visibility. Against this backdrop, several new domestic and regional carbon market initiatives gained traction in both developed and developing economies in 2011. Five new jurisdictions (i.e., Australia, California, Québec, Republic of Korea, and Mexico) passed legislations laying the foundation for cap-and-trade schemes. Together, these initiatives will drive substantial resources towards low-carbon investments and they have the potential to unleash a truly transformational carbon market, in support of a global solution to the climate challenge.
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